ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors have made easier the transition to Rousseau by eliciting from Locke his three main doctrines. All three are to be found in Rousseau, with the difference that their mutual inconsistency is clearly seen, and that they consequently appear now as stages in a progress which attempts either to leave behind the less adequate theories- or reconcile them with their more developed successors. Rousseau began by worshipping the Noble Savage and the Golden Age. Like Locke, he regarded Society as a ‘fall’ from a primitive condition of natural goodness and health. Instead of renunciation, they have made an advantageous exchange; instead of an uncertain and precarious way of living they have got one that is better and more secure; instead of natural independence they have got liberty; instead of the power to harm others, security for themselves; and instead of their strength, which others might overcome, a right which social union makes invincible.’.
